Old Choices, New Paths
by ncfan
Summary: While waiting for the year to fall, Gaara never knows he's being watched. /Maybe it's better if I just stay dead./ Dedicated to Megii of Mysteri OusStranger.


This oneshot is dedicated to Megii of Mysteri OusStranger; I have not been able to hate Yashamaru since I read her fic _Blue_ (I recommend it highly, but just to warn you, it was rated M for a reason). I hope she sees this.

Happy New Years!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

The wind is cold and biting; the sandstorm that earlier threatened to cancel the New Year's celebrations has mercifully slacked off, leaving a beautifully clear sky that exposes all the stars in a glittering universe.

The man wraps his scarf closer around his head, shielding his dark blond hair, grown ragged and coarse, from the sight of men.

His eyes, the dull color of iron unpolished, survey the throbbing city, loud and joyous, ready to celebrate for any reason because they have so little joy in their lives. He can hardly believe that it has been nearly ten years since the last time he set eyes on this place. He can hardly comprehend that Sunagakure has changed so little since the time in which he was forced to flee.

The wind is cold, gnawing on his hands, chewing down his already broken fingernails; he has little but an hour, maybe an hour and a half, before he will have to leave, and Yashamaru still has something that he knows he needs to do.

* * *

Gone are the days when the chunin's stealth was something that could be detected by the ANBU's eagle eyes. Now he is as insubstantial as a shadow, as invisible as a desert rat in a sandstorm.

Ten years of living on his wits and on the run from the ANBU can not have failed to teach him anything.

_Yashamaru walks into the Kazekage's office, feeling a strange sense of foreboding chill his blood. He prays that the matter that has called him into the Kazekage's office has nothing more to it than a matter of the hospital._

He slips through the alleyways and tunnels, heading for the Kazekage's compound. Yashamaru isn't noticed by the partiers, or the ANBU. He scales a wall to climb to the roof of a building, and starts to leap over rooftops. He praises the luck that has taken the guards away from the outer walls of the village, and in to the heart of the village for the celebrations.

Yashamaru sees a window of the Kazekage's house open, golden light spilling out like a yellow sea. He sits and waits, knowing without knowing that the one he wishes to see will be there.

He sits, and waits, his breathing growing more and more tense, praying beyond all hope and reason that he is not wrong.

"_Kazekage-sama?" Yashamaru steps into the office, bowing at the waist to the man who sits in the desk, keeping his face carefully neutral as always, so as not to betray the dislike that always surged up through his throat whenever his gray eyes laid on his widowed brother-in-law._

"_Sabure." It wasn't exactly the sort of greeting a man normally gave his brother-in-law, but to be honest, it wasn't like Yashamaru and the Kazekage had a normal, let alone happy relationship._

_Takeo's eyes sweeps over the bandages wrapped around Yashamaru's forehead and forearms. "And you call yourself a med nin," he murmurs with icy scorn._

_Yashamaru scowls. He believes in letting wounds heal on their own as long as they don't pose a threat to life and mobility. When it comes to Yashamaru, Takeo always knows where to jab the knife in._

"_You wished to speak to me, Kazekage-sama?"_

"_Yes." Takeo moves a few papers aside and picks up a thick manila file. "I have a mission for you."_

_Yashamaru moves forward and takes the file. There are bright red letter on the folder spelling 'STANDING'. _

_Yashamaru feels his blood run cold. Because there is only one standing mission in Suna._

The light is shadowed as a figure in flowing robes comes to sit in the wide windowsill. Yashamaru takes in a breath, a breath that sounds like an earthquake in his own ears.

The figure has red hair.

"_How can you ask this of me?" Yashamaru demands, his voice low and shaking. "Do you know what you're asking?"_

"_You hate the Shukaku," Takeo points out flatly._

"_Yes, but not enough to kill Gaara!" Yashamaru roars, feeling his ability to control himself begin to wane. Takeo's reaction is minimal; he is deserving of his reputation, of being the _Aisu_kage of Suna._

"_You hate _him_," Takeo speaks softly, his voice barely a whisper upon a tide of air, his eyes never so much as flickering. "You hate him, for what he did to your sister."_

_Yashamaru casts a hot-and-cool gaze over his brother-in-law, hot for rage and cool for hardness of heart. "Shukaku killed Karura. _You_ killed Karura. Gaara did not. How can you ask me to kill my own nephew?! Better question, how can you order an assassination on your own child?!"_

_Takeo's cold eyes somehow freeze and burn Yashamaru at the same time. "It is the duty of a shinobi to make their village strong, and to weed out all those who threaten it."_

_Yashamaru feels his blood freeze. The way Takeo's wording this, he knows what's coming next._

_Takeo leans back in his chair. "Yashamaru, you have two options. You can either choose to obey the word of your kage, or you can refuse to take the mission._

"_In the event that you choose to accept this mission, if you survive, I will explain that you were acting on my orders, and you will not be prosecuted. If you do not survive, again, it will be made known that you were simply following orders."_

_Takeo stiffens slightly. "However, if you should refuse…_

"_If you should refuse, then I will give you an hour to flee, starting when you leave my office; I've given orders for the ANBU and the guards at the wall to…_look away_ for the next hour. After that, though you will not be officially listed in the bingo book as a missing nin, I will have an ANBU unit in constant pursuit of you. That mission will never be officially on the books either; you will be hunted until the time of my death."_

_Takeo gives the indication that he is finished, and Yashamaru, shaking, turns to leave his office. He has it all figured out; he's going to grab Gaara and…_

"_And Yashamaru?" Takeo's voice remains chillingly mild as he speaks. The alternating shade and light cast by the blinds on the windows stripes his face. "A word of caution. If you linger past the deadline, I will know._

"_If you attempt to tell anyone of what has transpired in this office on this day, I will know. If you attempt to take any of your belongings beyond what money you can carry in your pockets, I will know. If you attempt to warn Gaara or take him with you, I will know; that applies to Temari and Kankuro as well. If you do anything besides leave between now and the end of the hour—that is, of course, providing that you disobey my direct orders—I will know, and your cold, unmoving corpse will litter the dunes in pieces so fast it'll make your head spin. Am I clear?"_

_Yashamaru feels his head burn. He has half a mind to tell him that it's about as clear as mud, but common sense kicks in. He's a twenty-seven-year-old man who's never risen above the rank of chunin; he's not exactly what anyone would call the best of the best. Yashamaru is an outstanding medic, but combat isn't his strong point. Takeo is famous—and infamous—for his skills with the sword and the wind. If it comes down to a fight, Yashamaru stands no chance._

"_Quite clear, sir." He steps out of the office._

_Within an hour, a cloaked and hooded figure, short and slender if a man, tall if a woman, slips out through the gates, and no one sees to see him, because Yashamaru will not see the village hidden in the Sand again, not for another ten years._

_What he doesn't know is that a member of the Yuuhi clan was observing him while in the Kazekage's office, and that the same member of the Yuuhi clan has been studying him, his behavior, his mannerisms, his speech and voice patterns, personality and techniques for weeks._

Yashamaru spent nearly ten years wandering from one country to the next, under assumed name after assumed name, never staying anywhere for more than a few weeks. In fact, a great deal of his time had been spent hitchhiking on merchant freighters; Yashamaru had seen a great deal of the world beyond the Five Shinobi Nations (Yashamaru took the opportunity to fill up four entire journals with his experiences; it was the only thing ever convincing him that his life as an exile was a reality and not some sort of demented dream), and it was easy to jump ship. People were always willing to pay in exchange for his services (Yashamaru had, in fact, been able to make off with a few journals containing his medical notes), no one ever asked many questions (many of the captains were running less than legal operations; two or three even outright admitted to being smugglers), and the fact that he was legally dead rather than listed in the bingo book as a missing nin actually made things a lot easier for Yashamaru.

He has seen many things over the years, been to distant lands where the names of people are strange and their tongues even stranger. But he stayed near Suna for the first few days after his defection, and the news he learned eavesdropping…_drove the life out of me._

"…_D'you hear? Some medic in Suna tried to kill the Kazekage's son!"_

"_Which one?"_

"_The monster, by all accounts. The medic's dead, and that thing's gone crazy!"_

Yashamaru still feels his eyes sting. _I was so stupid. I should have taken a risk…I should have done something, anything…_

Yashamaru does not hate his nephew. Everyone, including—and it still makes him sting to think of this—Gaara, Temari and Kankuro, thinks he hates him. It would be understandable.

But he does not. Gaara is the last vestige of Karura left on the earth, and Yashamaru loves him for that. He loves his sweet, gentle, beautiful, troubled, sad and lonely nephew, and he didn't want to leave. He didn't want his nephew, a child who was practically his son by lieu of fostering, to become a psychopathic killer. _I'll admit it, I was overprotective…I wanted him to stay small and vulnerable and holdable forever, and I couldn't have that… I knew that day in the office would come, but I just tried to put it off for so long…_

_Damn it all, he must hate me…_

Yashamaru only discovered recently that his brother-in-law was dead; he heard about it from frequenting a bar and hearing about the confirmation of the _Godaime_ Kazekage. Then he heard something even more shocking. Gaara was the Godaime Kazekage now.

Yashamaru had a hard enough time comprehending Gaara's transition from cute, sad child to cold, empty vessel. He honestly had no idea how Gaara had rehabilitated himself enough to be elected to the position of Kazekage without there being a bloody insurrection immediately before or afterwards. _I would love to know how he managed that._

Yashamaru feels his heart stutter as the slight, slender figure fluidly perches himself in the window. Deep down, it's hard not to admit that Yashamaru expected to see a child. He remembers Gaara as a small, thin child with breaking eyes and a melancholy smile, and a part of Yashamaru expected to see that, because the only image he has of Gaara that he remembers is a small picture locked away in his mind's eye, of a six-year-old, not of a nearly sixteen-year-old.

The first thing that comes to Yashamaru's mind is that Gaara is still almost ridiculously small. He's slim and has an almost fragile appearance; his pale, porcelain skin gleams like alabaster in the yellow light and the moonlight and contrasts strikingly with his blood red hair.

He has, like Yashamaru, a slightly feminine appearance, though in Gaara it is not nearly as pronounced. It's just something around the eyes, large and almond-shaped, the narrow chin and small nose, that is very similar to his mother's facial structure (though the shape of Gaara's eyes is the same as his father's). The black circles around his deep-set eyes have deepened with the passing of time.

But his heart is stuttering again, for a different reason. _He looks so small…_ Gaara is swallowed up in those kage robes, as they flutter and twist around his small frame. Yashamaru feels his eyes well up through tear ducts thought to be dry and dead.

Gaara stares out at the display of fireworks; Yashamaru gets the feeling that he's waiting for someone.

Yashamaru bites his lip as the moon rises in the sky and the multi-colored fireworks (Yashamaru frowns at that; when he lived in Suna, the only color fireworks they had was wine red) scream in the background.

He is torn between two opposing influences: fear and want. He wants to approach Gaara, but he is afraid to.

Yashamaru has not seen his nephew for ten years. Every instinct in him tells him to go down and talk to him, but common sense and pure intuition tells him otherwise.

As far as Gaara and everyone else knows, Yashamaru died trying to kill him a few months under ten years ago. This drove Gaara over the edge down the slippery slope christened "Insanity" (and Yashamaru can't quite wrap his mind around how he climbed back _up _that slippery slope). Yashamaru is a medic; he knows human psychology like the map of veins on the back of his hand and he had plenty of experience with those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress and other psychological traumas and disorders during the Second and Third Wars. Yashamaru knows that the imposter who replaced him is the source of all of Gaara's suffering, and that if he himself suddenly walks back into Gaara's—and everyone else's—life, the term "everything'll get thrown straight to hell" will be putting it mildly.

It's better to stay out of it, and keep on with his life of endless wandering and hitchhiking and utter isolation. _It will be better for everyone…if I simply stay dead._

Another approaches Gaara at his perch. "Could you give me some room, Gaara?" The figure is another small person, a boy who looks about Gaara's age, around the same height, with messy fair hair. Yashamaru sees, with some surprise, the glint of a Leaf hitai-ate.

Gaara scoots over a little bit, and the other boy props himself on the end of the windowsill opposite from the redhead.

"Here, I got us some drinks. I made sure it was from the bowl that _wasn't_ spiked," the blond adds pointedly.

"Thank you," Gaara murmurs, leaning forward to accept the glass of punch.

A high-pitched shriek of laughter is heard from inside the banquet room. The blond snorts and chuckles. "Man, Sakura-chan is so wasted off that spiked punch."

Gaara rolls his eyes. "It's her own fault."

The Leaf nin protests. "Hey, it's not like anyone bothered telling us your brother spiked one of the punch bowls."

Yashamaru nearly chokes. _Kankuro spiked a punch bowl?_

"Naruto, if you, who has been trained in neither medical ninjutsu nor the detection of poisons can perceive an altering agent in a bowl of punch, then surely Haruno Sakura, highly skilled medic that she is, should be able to identify a foreign agent in her drink. So again, _it's her own fault_."

The boy named Naruto grins sardonically. "Whatever you say, O Great Kazekage-sama."

Gaara looks away momentarily, then peers at Naruto out of one highly annoyed pale green eye. "Naruto," he starts quietly, and Yashamaru is reminded of no one so much as his predecessor Takeo, cold and disturbingly mild, yet harshly intense, "if you ever address me as "Kazekage-sama" in that tone of voice again… scratch that, if you ever address me as "Kazekage-sama" again _period_, God help me I will toss you out a window and I won't catch you until you're three inches from the ground. And I might miss. I had enough trouble with people thinking there was something 'messianic'—Gaara grimaces at the word 'messianic'—about my revival. Don't you start."

Yashamaru frowns. _Revival…What is he talking about?_

Naruto laughs and throws up his hands in defeat. "Alright, alright." He smiles and stares off at the fireworks for a moment. "You know, Ino's been looking for you for almost an hour."

Gaara groans and hides his face in his right hand. Naruto laughs. "Come on, I thought you liked her."

Yashamaru feels a little encouraged at this. Gaara at least seems to have something in common with most adolescent males of his age; he has girl troubles.

"I do, I do, but she drank the spiked punch too, and she's just a little…tipsy."

Naruto chuckles. "What a gentleman. Hey, thanks for inviting us here. Tsunade was sorry she couldn't come herself."

Gaara smiles slightly. "I sent Tsunade-sama a bottle of wine. Old vintage."

Yashamaru blinks. In the course of his medical apprenticeship under Chiyo-sama, he was the regular recipient of "earfuls" concerning the current Hokage of Konohagakure. Chiyo had utterly despised Tsunade of Konoha; the words "slut", "whore", "brat", "sniveling rat", and "bitch" were often part of Chiyo's descriptions of her younger rival; Chiyo had a very colorful vocabulary. _Probably still does, _Yashamaru thinks fondly.

Come to think of it, alcoholism is a vice of Tsunade's that Chiyo, abstinent herself, has always deplored and denounced. So Yashamaru can't help but feel a little apprehensive about his nephew sending alcohol to the Hokage.

Naruto hoots and hollers. "She'll love you for that!" Then he frowns and peers intently at Gaara. "Hey, Gaara, you'll be sixteen in about a month, won't you?"

Gaara stiffens. "Yes…"

"And the drinking age in the Land of Wind is sixteen, isn't it?"

_Exactly the point._ Yashamaru nods disapprovingly.

"Yes."

"Man, you're quiet. So, if you aren't old enough to drink, how'd you get your hands on a bottle of wine to begin with?"

The hint of a knowing smile forms on Gaara's small, thin mouth. "I'm the Kazekage, Naruto. Work it out."

"Oh, my God…" Naruto's voice is disbelieving and highly amused.

They trail off. Yashamaru smiles slightly. They are obviously close friends; a kage, even a teenaged one, would not be so casual around a mere acquaintance. For as long as he knew him, Gaara had no friends; Yashamaru is glad to know that he has at least one close friend now, someone who can pick him up when he falls.

"Hey, Gaara, you have any resolutions?"

"Yes." Gaara nods firmly, his jaw set. "When the Akatsuki come back—" Naruto stiffens, his face twisting as if in pain "—I will be ready. Because they will come back. I won't let them get past me this time. The village will not be harmed or damaged in any way. And this time, _they_ won't walk away."

_The Akatsuki? _Due to his closeness to the Kazekage, Yashamaru had often heard that name. In fact, he and his sister had once even been sent on a mission to collect a masked man who was later determined to be a member of the criminal organization. But what were they doing now? _I truly have been away for a very long time._

Naruto nods stiffly, his face still oddly strained. "That sounds pretty good. Me, I just want to be better than I was before."

Gaara smiles strangely. "Another year is about to pass, never to come again."

"Yeah." Naruto smiles and stretches his neck. "It's nearly midnight. They're about to start the finale; I wanna watch this."

Yashamaru flinches. _Nearly midnight? Already? I wanted more time…It's too soon…I…_

Yashamaru stands up. The cloth of his wraps flutter heavily in the wind. He feels his eyes burn again, and ignores it.

"When I think about it," he starts, whispering softly, "I probably shouldn't have come back. But I had to. I just…wanted to see you. One last time. This will probably be the last time I ever see you, Gaara, and I just wanted to say goodbye. So maybe, just maybe, I would be able to put my past to rest, and that I might be able to live for the future.

"I just wanted to say…Goodbye. And sorry. I'm sorry for all the things I wasn't able to do for you, for the hell I left you in. Goodbye, Gaara. Something tells me, I won't be seeing this town again."

Gaara frowns and looks up. His eyes search the area of the roof next to the windowsill where he and Naruto sit.

"What is it Gaara?" Naruto sounds concerned; his blue eyes search his face intensely.

"Nothing…" Gaara's face twists in pain; _It can't be, it just can't _"…I just thought I heard…Nothing." Gaara shakes his head decisively. "Are you sure this drink isn't spiked?"

As the finale starts in all it's glory, the clock strikes midnight. The old year has ended, and a new one has started. It holds new paths for many, and dead ends for even more.

A slender figure jumps roofs, trying to get to the wall before the ANBU go back on duty in a few minutes.

Yashamaru's old life has finally ended for good. Now, all he can do is pave a new path, and hope that the old life is never resurrected to haunt him again.

And somewhere, as a troubled young man watches the fireworks show with his closest friend, he thinks about the uncle who taught him the most important things he ever learned. He thinks about the uncle who taught him pain, and taught him love.

* * *

Obviously, this is an AU in which Yashamaru did not hate Gaara and fled the village when he was ordered to kill his nephew. Yashamaru knows nothing of Gaara's death and revival, and knows nothing of Chiyo's death. In fact, all he knows about anything that's happened in the Land of Wind in the past few years is what he was displayed as knowing in this oneshot.

This isn't a part of my canon. I think that, in canon, Yashamaru hated his nephew, and indeed was killed trying to kill him. But I decided that I would try something new in tribute to the New Year.

Hope you approved.


End file.
